


To Share a Burden

by Depths



Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Childhood Trauma, Desperation, Eye Trauma, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Major Character Injury, Obsessive Behavior, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Psychological Trauma, Self-Hatred, Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28649247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Depths/pseuds/Depths
Summary: Basil was going to save Sunny. No matter what it took.
Relationships: Basil & Sunny (OMORI), Mari & Sunny (OMORI)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 233





	To Share a Burden

**Author's Note:**

> for the most part, entirely canon compliant.

There was something behind Sunny. 

It looked exactly the same as it did that day. It followed him. Just over his friend's shoulder, always, always, always...

"Can you see it, Sunny?" Basil gasped out. His nails bit through his shirt, his vest, digging into the thin skin over where his heart was supposed to be. Sunny stared at him, halfway between vacant and something else. As if he was just now waking up out of a dream right into another nightmare. It was the same, too. Everything repeating. 

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder. Basil almost wished he could laugh about it. The sound rattled in his throat like swallowed glass. Sunny's eyes widened when he managed a smile. "There's no way out of this, is there?" 

_ Never. Not for us. We're in this together, you and I. _

Basil took a step forward. 

_ Aren't we? _

Sunny took a step back. Basil watched his friend turn. Moonlight on dark, black hair, thick and soft and familiar. So similar to Mari’s. Even four years later, even a thousand years later. Sunny hadn't changed much at all, had he? Still the same, after all this time. 

He swore he could see the glint of an eye peeking through those dark strands. 

Basil gasped awake. He jerked forward. His limbs felt all at once sleepy, cold–– head spinning, overfull and nauseous–– 

He didn't realize he had grabbed onto Sunny until his friend was turning around. His eyes were huge where they caught on Basil's fingers wrapping tightly around his thin wrist. "Where are you going?! Stop trying to leave me!" Basil shouted. Sunny yanked against his grip. "S-stop it! Stop it! Stop it!  _ Stop it!" _ He yelled, grip tightening. 

_ Just stay right here. Right here. Right here, with me.  _

Sunny flinched and he did too. He hadn't meant to yell. He hadn't! He didn't mean to, he  _ never _ meant to–– 

He let go. Sunny jerked away from him. His back smacked against the door, tucking his arms close to his chest. So curled in on himself he was barely standing. His eyes, wide and alert, remained fixed on Basil. 

His feet remained rooted to the floor. Sunny wasn't trying to leave again. Not this time. 

Basil took several hasty steps back, almost tripping on himself. Every step felt like backpedaling through molasses. 

_ Stay right here.  _

_ I didn't mean to yell at you.  _

_ I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm–– _

"I don't want to be alone," Was what came out. Basil yanked at his hair. He couldn't stop himself. It all poured out, violent and poisonous, and he could do nothing but let it. "Not again. You can't–– you can't leave me again." 

_ Sunny wouldn't do this to me.  _

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder. Basil's eyes fixed on it. He was unable to look at anything else. Even as Sunny slowly pushed away from the door, shaking legs carrying him closer to him, he couldn't seem to bridge the distance between the thing and his best friend's face. 

"You wouldn't leave me," Basil breathed out. He reached out, uselessly trying to touch Sunny's face. His shy, quiet, gentle friend. Sunny loved him. Sunny loved  _ all _ of them–– and Sunny especially loved Mari. They were inseparable, even with a couple of years age difference. They were irreplaceable to each other. Nothing could pry them apart. 

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder.

"That's not like you, Sunny," Basil said, more firmly, and it felt like a lick of cold air in summer to say it out loud. To hear it. To say it and know, to  _ know _ that it was–– "It's something behind you again, isn't it?" 

He couldn't see Sunny's face. He was sure it was scared. He was scared too. Terrified. 

The mud dragging around his calves seemed to thicken. Darkness yawned out of every corner of the room. it swallowed the floor, his feet, the shreds of moonlight through the gaps in the window. 

It licked at the edges of Sunny's feet. 

_ Get away from him.  _

Basil looked up and Something stared back at him. 

_ Stay away from Sunny! _

He couldn't see Sunny's face. It didn't matter. Four years hadn't changed his best friend one little bit. Basil knew him better than anybody, except for Mari. 

He knew him, he knew him, he knew him. 

Basil fumbled behind him. His fingers sank into the twisting darkness and bile swelled up in his throat. Something sharp sliced across his fingers and he grasped for it desperately, unable to look back. 

"I'll protect you no matter what, Sunny. You can count on me," Basil promised. 

_ Sunny loved Mari. Sunny loves me. Sunny loves everybody, even if he struggles to say it. He likes steak, and can't swim, and hates to sleep alone, and learned violin just to play with Mari. Sunny is a good listener. I can tell him anything. Even though he's shy, he never stopped me from taking photos of him.  _

_ Sunny is my best friend. My best friend would never hurt Mari. My best friend would never hurt me.  _

_ Sunny wouldn't do something like that. _

"Don't worry Sunny, I'll save you again." 

The shears slotted into his hand. Firm. Familiar. Grounding. They were small but sharp. He always made sure they were. He felt bad when he had to use dull ones on his plants... surely a clean cut felt so much better than a dull, repeating drag. Everything was better when it was quick. Like ripping off a bandaid. 

Basil was sick of letting things just  _ happen _ around him. Sick of letting them happen  _ to _ him. 

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder.

"Something behind you... I'll get rid of it once and for all," Basil promised. Sunny finally stumbled back again. His feet ripped up through the pooling darkness with every step. Could he feel it dragging him down? Basil was sure he could. Certain of it. He didn't need to see Sunny's face. He never had. 

Something pressed against his friend's back, pushing him forward with every step Sunny tried to take back. Basil felt a little sick to think the thing was almost helping him. He swallowed painfully around the lump in his throat and reached out with his free hand. He had to stay calm. He had to–– for Sunny. "Don't be scared. I'm–– I'm scared too, but–– but this is for the best." 

He could finally see them. Sunny's huge, pleading eyes, pupils blown wide. The bare light in the room was swallowed whole by them. 

The darkness was all around them. Yanking at their feet. Swallowing them whole. Crawling on their back. 

Basil focused on Sunny's eyes, on the darkness in them, and felt something lock sure and shakily steady in him. 

"Everything is going to be okay," He whispered, more to himself than anything, and he lunged. 

Sunny slammed against the floor and Basil kept him there. He was small, the smallest of them all–– the tiny, fragile one of their close-knit old group. The one who hated to fight. 

But Sunny had been  _ rotting _ away for four years, alone in his house. The padding of healthy flesh was gone from his arms, his ribs, his stomach. Thin, pasty skin over patchwork veins and bare bones. Sunny fought–– of course he did. Basil didn't blame him for it. He almost was glad for it. It was sickening already, having just grabbed his best friend's thin wrist before. The new bruises throbbing under his skin, where Sunny's knees had hit his stomach, the thin welts where Sunny's nails had caught his skin–– it was a  _ relief. _

The fear in Sunny's eyes––

_ It’s worth it. It has to be worth it. It has to be worth it. It has to–– _

His hand tightened around the shears. "Stop struggling," Basil begged. Sunny jerked desperately under him, nails trembling where they dug into his arm in a futile attempt to stop him. Basil tried not to vomit. 

_ It has to be worth it. It has to be worth it.  _

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder. He just had to get rid of it. He had to save Sunny. 

_ Everything is going to be okay.  _

The eyes stared up at him, unblinking. He drove the shears down. The edge of the blades caught the darkness of Sunny's hair. He felt it through himself the way Sunny shuddered, his mouth opening in a soundless cry. Darkness welled up through the slice Basil accidentally made across his forehead. 

_ I'm sorry, I'm sorry,  _

Sunny's lashed out, his dull nails barely missing Basil's cheek. 

_ I had to do this. I have to save you.  _

The darkness wasn't just around them. It was  _ in _ them. It was dripping out of the cut on Sunny's forehead, it was staring at him through Sunny's eyes. 

Basil pulled with all his strength and unlodged the shears from the floorboards. He almost toppled back from the force it took. Something well up against Sunny's back. Basil raised the shears again. A small hand thumped solidly against his chest. The other landed in his eye. 

The shears fumbled in his hand. His head throbbed.  _ "Stop struggling," _ he pleaded again. "Sunny, stop struggling,  _ Sunny––" _

Both his friend's hands landed on his chest, pushing as hard as they could. The sound of ragged breathing, desperate and panicked, filtered just barely over the rapid beating of his heart. Sunny struggled harder. 

The darkness was swallowing them whole. It was separating them. He couldn't see Sunny's face. 

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder. 

Basil sobbed, almost retching with the force of it. _"Why!?_ _Why won't you stop!?"_

Something stared at him through Sunny's eyes. 

Basil raised the shears and drove them down as hard as he could. Something wet splashed across his cheeks. It soaked his hands, soaked his clothes, soaked Sunny's face in darkness. 

Sunny was screaming. All Sunny was doing now was screaming. 

_ "I have to do this," _ Basil barely heard himself bawling, "I'm try––I'm trying to  _ h-help _ you, I'm––" 

It wouldn't leave. It wouldn't leave. It wouldn't leave. It wouldn't leave. 

Basil raised the shears. The sick, wet noise it made sliding out of the darkness making up Sunny's face made him heave. He forced it back down. 

Again, again, again. It was just momentum now. He barely felt the glide of the blades through the monsters controlling them. All he had to do was keep fighting them. Keep going until they stopped, until they left them alone, until Sunny was safe and he was okay and  _ everything would be fine again.  _

Light flooded the room. The shadows shrank into the corners. 

All Basil could hear was screaming. But it wasn't his, and it wasn't Sunny's–– it couldn't be Sunny. Sunny wasn't screaming anymore. Sunny was–– 

Hands grabbed his arms, his shoulders. They yanked him back. Yanked at his hand. Yanked at his slippery fingers until the shears slid out of them. 

He couldn't see Sunny's face. What familiar parts remained of his friend's face was twisted in pain and fear. Blood soaked into his hair. Into the collar of his shirt. It ran down his gaunt cheeks, down his jaw, down his neck, pooling into the rug under him. 

Basil barely managed to trace the blood to the source before he was heaving violently, the hands on him nearly not letting go in time for him to vomit violently on his shoes. 

_ I had to do this.  _

Against his mind, against the hands back on him, against everything, he still looked back at Sunny. He almost threw up again. Bile raced painfully up his throat, burning the back of his tongue. But he had to know. 

Sunny hadn't moved. 

Something continued to stare at him over Sunny's shoulder. 

Noise rushed back in around him. So much screaming. None of it was Sunny's. Sunny had stopped screaming. Sunny had stopped fighting. None of it was––

"––bulance! Now,  _ NOW, _ Call a––" 

_ I did this.  _

Hero's grim face hovered over him, his hands painfully firm around his shoulders, as Basil passed out. 

**Author's Note:**

> I binged the whole game yesterday and it left me useless all night anyway I wrote this in an hour and now it's here :) 
> 
> I'm going to expand the omori tag on this website if it kills me lol im starving for content
> 
> you can find me over at my tumblr, [Leviathiane](https://leviathiane.tumblr.com)!


End file.
